One Of Performance Marketing’s Biggest Thinkers – Matt McEvoy Of MaxBounty Speaks Out

MaxBounty has been the most consistently top-ranked CPA network in the world over the last five years. A recent acquisition has seen MaxBounty-veteran Matt McEvoy appointed as CEO. Matt was previously responsible for overseeing all business development for the company over most of the decade so he knows the business, the clients and the industry inside out. He brings big plans to expand client services, invest in innovative technology and maintain industry leadership.

A fascinating Blue Book conversation with one of performance marketing’s biggest thinkers.

“I know there can be a bigger vision for the industry than we have seen so far. I believe we can and should be an essential part of any big-brand CMO’s solution set. Growing the company and industry to a point where they’re regularly integrated into a brand’s marketing strategies has been our vision from day one.” – Matt McEvoy

Matt McEvoy is on a mission to change performance marketing. Along the way, he intends to make MaxBounty the leading CPA network worldwide, which seems achievable given that they are the only network to have repeatedly retained the Blue Book #1 ranking for CPA networks. Matt took over the CEO-role earlier this year following the Sauve brothers’ sale of the company to a Private Equity investment group, and he is excited by the possibilities that are opening up.

“Performance marketing is often the space where popularized online marketing ideas are originated. From innovative models to conversion funnels, MaxBounty has been at the forefront of those developments since its inception. Our goal is to continue to do that, pushing the industry forward to ensure that same evolution occurs with our clients,” he told us. “We frequently encounter potential clients who have unique needs and service requests, because of that, we’re always looking at developing new features to ensure we can provide them with what they want. Online marketing is complex and requires an amalgamation of tools and strategies to all be functioning at once. We pride ourselves on effectively managing those components for both ourselves, and our clients.”

The integration of performance marketing into the larger AdTech ecosystem is accelerating as private equity investments into the industry have increased. McEvoy sees this as an opportunity for the whole sector.

“The increase of private equity investment into AdTech delivers two significant positives for our industry. The first is that those investment groups are now fully aware of the opportunities in digital marketing – that means performance marketing is well-positioned to attract much more of those available funds. The second is that the huge amounts of fraud present on ad exchanges puts performance marketing in a very favorable light. Fraud in our industry is well-understood, manageable and at lower levels than in other media sectors. Performance marketing is well-positioned to grow exponentially over the next few years.”

Ultimately of course, McEvoy’s first goal is to maintain the success of MaxBounty as a world-class CPA network, and he sees an expansion of service offerings as a key to future growth.

“Something we strive to accomplish is a continual evolution of the MaxBounty network by expanding our offerings for both affiliates and advertisers. For affiliates, that means providing new and innovative ways to make money. For advertisers, we want to offer a much broader range of client services.” He continues, “Our long-term plan is to offer a complete set of agency services to our advertisers. This will include campaign planning, reporting/tracking options, creative design and optimization, website development and hosting.”

This kind of strategy seems like a win-win for a network like MaxBounty that has built up a mass of online marketing experience running successful campaigns over a period of years. McEvoy again, “As far as the new marketing services are concerned we already have the knowledge, we just need to productize it. It will take us some time to get there, but we believe there is a massive opportunity. This approach will enable us to leverage our existing deep-rooted knowledge base and to bring it to the benefit of clients and advertisers.”

One of the trends that the Blue Book survey has identified over the last two years has been an increasing focus on technology innovation by networks. Many of the bigger networks run on their own custom platforms rather than relying on commercial solutions like HasOffers and CAKE. MaxBounty has had its own platform for a long time, viewing the ability for fast and easy customization to be an important competitive advantage. Matt McEvoy now wants to leverage the technology, the new investments, and an expansion in staff on behalf of clients and advertisers.

“One of the things we are proudest of is that MaxBounty has retained its position as one of the leading CPA networks in the world for many years now. We are the only CPA network to retain the Blue Book #1 ranking for three years straight. With the increased financial backing that is now available to us and the revamped platform development program we’re undertaking we now want to push on to take our industry leadership to new levels.”

Speaking with Matt McEvoy is a wholly positive experience. It’s great to hear someone with a big vision for the industry, willing to commit time, effort and resources to build out his vision of what a modern CPA network should look like. MaxBounty is newly invigorated – it is going to be exciting to watch them grow.

About
For over 12 years, MaxBounty CEO Matt McEvoy has enjoyed being part of the growth and change in the affiliate marketing space. Matt became part of the industry in 2006, when he was brought on board at MaxBounty to increase the network’s roster of advertisers. He quickly moved into the position of Director of Business Development, leading the sales team and becoming an integral part of the network’s day-to-day business as it increased. Today as CEO, Matt guides the ever expanding MaxBounty team as they continue to provide opportunities for affiliates and advertisers to grow and evolve their businesses.

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About mThink

mThink is a specialist digital marketing company based in San Francisco. We focus on media buying, Facebook marketing, direct response, social and mobile. In addition mThink produces the annual Blue Book Rankings of major performance marketing networks.
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